The leap in temperatures over the past 13 months has exceeded the global heating forecasts – is this just a blip or a systemic shift?

Temperatures above 50C used to be a rarity confined to two or three global hotspots, but the World Meteorological Organization noted that at least 10 countries have reported this level of searing heat in the past year: the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India and China.

In Iran, the heat index – a measure that also includes humidity – has come perilously close to 60C, far above the level considered safe for humans.

Heatwaves are now commonplace elsewhere, killing the most vulnerable, worsening inequality and threatening the wellbeing of future generations. Unicef calculates a quarter of the world’s children are already exposed to frequent heatwaves, and this will rise to almost 100% by mid-century.

  • LustyArgonianEnglish
    1•4 months ago

    No, by definition of what’s alive, which is already scientifically described. That’s my entire point, is that the people commenting on this are laypeople without scientific understanding or basis. I’m trying to correct that because our scientific ignorance is literally killing us.

    A rock is not alive. A volcano is not alive. This is grade school science. This is what “biology” is.

    https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/intro-to-biology/what-is-biology/a/what-is-life

    Properties of life

    Biologists have identified various traits common to all the living organisms we know of. Although nonliving things may show some of these characteristic traits, only living things show all of them.

    1. Organization Living things are highly organized, meaning they contain specialized, coordinated parts. All living organisms are made up of one or more cells, which are considered the fundamental units of life.
    1. Metabolism Life depends on an enormous number of interlocking chemical reactions. These reactions make it possible for organisms to do work—such as moving around or catching prey—as well as growing, reproducing, and maintaining the structure of their bodies. Living things must use energy and consume nutrients to carry out the chemical reactions that sustain life. The sum total of the biochemical reactions occurring in an organism is called its metabolism.
    1. Homeostasis Living organisms regulate their internal environment to maintain the relatively narrow range of conditions needed for cell function. For instance, your body temperature needs to be kept relatively close to 98.6 [^\circ]F (37 [^\circ]C). This maintenance of a stable internal environment, even in the face of a changing external environment, is known as homeostasis.
    1. Growth Living organisms undergo regulated growth. Individual cells become larger in size, and multicellular organisms accumulate many cells through cell division. You yourself started out as a single cell and now have tens of trillions of cells in your body [^1]! Growth depends on anabolic pathways that build large, complex molecules such as proteins and DNA, the genetic material.
    1. Reproduction Living organisms can reproduce themselves to create new organisms. Reproduction can be either asexual, involving a single parent organism, or sexual, requiring two parents. Single-celled organisms, like the dividing bacterium shown in the left panel of the image at right, can reproduce themselves simply by splitting in two!
    1. Response Living organisms show “irritability,” meaning that they respond to stimuli or changes in their environment. For instance, people pull their hand away—fast!—from a flame; many plants turn toward the sun; and unicellular organisms may migrate toward a source of nutrients or away from a noxious chemical.
    1. Evolution Populations of living organisms can undergo evolution, meaning that the genetic makeup of a population may change over time. In some cases, evolution involves natural selection, in which a heritable trait, such as darker fur color or narrower beak shape, lets organisms survive and reproduce better in a particular environment. Over generations, a heritable trait that provides a fitness advantage may become more and more common in a population, making the population better suited to its environment. This process is called adaptation.

    We can see how earth as a planet doesn’t qualify as a living organism based on these 7 parameters. Metaphorically calling earth “living” to describe the various interacting systems and ecologies is common but not in this context with climate change and insisting the earth will actually repair itself like a living organism.

    I’m all for philosophically wondering about stuff, but we need to have an agreement on terms and what they mean. And in this case, these terms are already defined amd we know the planet isn’t able to heal itself to address climate change. That’s just a cope.